An Analysis Of The Errors In Written English By Non-English Majors

In recent years, English learning has become a necessity for Chinese students. More and more money and energy is invested into English learning. However, many students who grasp lots of words and expressions cannot even produce a satisfactory article. There are mainly two kinds of errors made by Chinese ESL learners: inter-lingual errors and intra-lingual errors. The former are more difficult to correct. Because inter-lingual errors are caused by English-Chinese thinking mode differences while intra-lingual ones are made by those learners who haven't completely understand and mastered English grammar and rules. The more the learners practice, the better they can use English and the less the intra-lingual errors are made. But those inter-lingual errors will still rise up. Therefore, it is badly needed to make both students and teachers realize that knowledge about English and Chinese thinking mode differences is crucial to ESL learners'English learning.It is found that in most of the previous researches on error analysis, theories take a big share in the whole paper. Therefore, in this thesis the author selects a considerable number of examples to explain the manifestations of English-Chinese thinking mode differences and various errors caused by those differences.The overall structure of the thesis is following:Chapter One includes a brief introduction of the background and significance of this research and the methodology used in this thesis.Chapter Two is a literature review on past researches, including researches on errors analysis in Chinese ESL (English as a second language) learners'English acquisition and researches on difference between Chinese and English thinking modes.Chapter Three is the foundation of this thesis, which includes theoretical basis of the paper--- relationship between language and thought, differences between Chinese and English thinking modes and reasons for those differences. In the history of human language development, the dispute on the relationship between language and thought lasts for quite a long time. There mainly have been five arguments:First, language determines thought. The famous theory is Sapir-Whorf hypothesis which says "our language helps mould our way of thinking", and people speaking different languages would have different thought patterns.Second, thought determines language. People always form thought first and then try to find exact words and ways to express their thoughts;Third, language equals with thought. Language is a sound thought and thought is a soundless language;Fourth, language and thought are independent to each other. Thought is the thing that can be sensed, while language is the thing being spoken out. There exist some thoughts which can not or needn't be expressed through language;Fifth, language and thought are independent to each other at early stage while later they become dependent to each other. The development of language and that of thought are different. For a child, before two years old, the development of language falls behind the development of thought, and therefore, language and thought develop independently. After this age, the development of language and thought begin to mingle.In this paper, the author holds the opinion that language and thought influence each other and reflect each other, rather than simply language determines thought or thought determines language. Language is the outer shell of thought and used to reflect and express the thoughts produced through human perceiving the reality. People with different thoughts will perceive the world differently. Furthermore, they can use the different thinking ways to express the same ideas and to get the same knowledge, but may be with different words, sentence orders or text structures in the different language expressions. The differences between thinking modes are the main reasons that result in the differences of language forms.Due to differences in culture, history, geographic environment, and philosophy, Chinese thinking mode and English thinking mode are different from each other. Having read a considerable number of literatures the author analyzed many materials then integrated them getting six classifications of English and Chinese thinking mode differences:Hypotactic thinking mode vs. Paratactic thinking modeEnglish is a language full of logic structures, whose expressions are clear. In English text, sentences are organized strictly logically and orderly and connective words are frequently used to show the logical relationships among sentences. And there exist many classifications of words, tenses, voices and so on. However, Chinese sentence structure is loose, lacking logics, and there is also no such complicate classification of words, tenses, and voices. Chinese people can get the invisible logical relations among sentences in a text just through context, and seldom use connective words.Analytic thinking mode vs. Synthetic thinking modeEnglish thought pattern is a reductive one with the opinion that only by knowing every constituent part of the whole can we understand an object perfectly. With this thought, when English people distinguish different things, they put more emphasis on the differences rather than the similarities. And also in lexical level, in English, properties of noun and verb are clearly distinguished. And for a Chinese character or phrase, it may have many parts of speech in English. Chinese people perceive the thought that there are no completely different things in the world, so they don't distinguish two opposite things clearly. They think everything in the world is connected with each other. This thinking mode is mirrored through Chinese holistic thought, which is determined by Chinese philosophy advocating that the objective world and the subjective world are combined as a unity. Abstract thinking mode vs. Imagery thinking modeImagery thinking mode is a psychological process in which people can produce new images by analyzing, synthesizing and reproducing the object images in memory. For example, if we think of a dog, an image of dog will appear in our minds. Abstract thinking mode is a psychological process in which people cognize objects through judging, reasoning and conceptualizing. Instead of image of objects, abstract thinking mode puts more focus on concepts.Chinese people are used to describing abstract things through concrete images, while English people tend to explain some complex rational and mental concepts with some abstract words.Linear thinking mode vs. Curvilinear thinking modeEnglish thinking mode is like a straight line (for example main clauses), where many branches stretch out (such as subordinate clauses), while Chinese thinking mode is like a curve which moves forward spirally.Objective thinking mode vs. Ontological thinking modeChinese philosophy takes human as the subject to observe and perceive the world, which forms ontological thinking mode. Personal experience and intuitive sense are often used as support materials. While English people put more emphasis on objectivity and logics, so they are likely to support their arguments and develop theories through collecting and statistics, evidence and facts which are more convincing in the eyes of English people. Therefore, English thinking mode is objective thinking mode.Other DifferencesBesides those five contrasts above, there are still other differences between English and Chinese thinking mode which however can not be classified easily. For example, the same image or even the same literal meaning may has different connotative meaning in English from that in Chinese.Possessing different thinking modes, Chinese people and English people are bound to be different in language using either. However, when using English, many Chinese students are liable to be influenced by their Chinese thinking mode, and this led to many errors in the Chinese students'English acquisition process. Those errors are called inter-lingual errors, which are caused by negative transfer from their mother-tongue. In Chapter Four, the author analyzes errors in 120 Chinese non-English majored sophomores'homework and composition test papers in Datong University from the perspective of English and Chinese thinking mode difference, applying the six categories of English and Chinese thinking mode differences. The reason why the author chooses students'written work is that among five modules in English learning (listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating) writing and translating are most difficult to master for Chinese ESL learners.Chapter Five is conclusion part where the author summarizes the findings in error analyzing process and moreover gives some pedagogical suggestions for English teachers.In this chapter, the author also gives limitations of the thesis and some suggestions for the future researchers.